Too many prisons make people worse - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/international/21722654-world-can-learn-how-norway-treats-its-offenders-too-many-prisons-make-bad-people <comment><USER2> Prisons not only make the convicts inside them worse, but from my experience and POV, it makes the people observing and interacting with them worse as well.

I say this because while I seem to observe this prison-is-terrible-the- convicts-need-compassion, _not one person here has offered to help me in any meaningful way_ , even though I have documented my trials and tribulations over and over [0][1][2].

I have a 30 year history of software development, with 14 or so with the LAMP- stack. No one reading this is willing to even talk about some side project or prove-yourself 2 week gig? Ok right I get it...this isn't a help wanted or job board fine that's cool.

But still, I'm not getting it anymore...is everyone just into some sort of bullshit social signalling exercise or, perhaps worse, are willing to try to help ex-cons as long as they are funneled into low paying exploitative back- breaking jobs with no future that almost surely will lead 95% back into crime?

If so, can we start being honest about that's what all this discussion is about..."boy someone should sure do something about how screwed these people are but hell no it won't be me."

Yeah, so I'm frustrated and scared and broke and all that, so try to forgive my rant...I'm sure I'll come to regret it as I do so much else in my life.

[0] [https://postmoderncoder.svbtle.com/fear-and-jaywalking-in- la...](https://postmoderncoder.svbtle.com/fear-and-jaywalking-in-las-vegas) [1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14394324](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14394324) [2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14302656](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14302656)

<comment><USER3> May I ask you a question about your story in [0]? You said that you could not call anyone because you did not remember any numbers. Is that how it works? When they let you make a phone call after arrest, you can only call numbers you know by heart? You can't look them up? That sounds insane, who commits phone numbers to memory nowadays?

<comment><USER4> You don't get to keep your phone once arrested and booked. If the person processing your items is nice, they will look up a number for you in your phone and write it down on some scratch paper which you can take into holding.

<comment><USER5> That's ridiculous. What if the person isn't nice? What if you didn't have your phone with you in the first place? Or it got damaged or lost? How did this even work before mobile phones that stored contact lists, which really isn't that long ago?

What should _any_ of that matter as to whether you get justice or not?

I swear, with this stuff, the plea bargaining, juries, "expensive lawyers", sometimes I get the idea that the US justice system is designed to provide plot devices for TV series of police/justice procedurals, and everything else is an afterthought. How often do people say, after dealing with police/justice, "I felt like I was in a bad movie"?

<comment><USER6> If the person isn't nice you are SOL. I got arrested once during a commute for an unpaid parking ticket from college, cue cop placing cuffs on me tightly, slamming me against the squad car, searching the vehicle, then hauling me off to county for booking. They refused to let me look up numbers on my phone and I was left to call my parents 3 hours away to come pay the cash only bond.

It was a pretty eye opening experience. Especially on the arresting officer's part because they get no clue as to why they are arresting you beyond "FAILURE TO APPEAR" that shows on their screen, so they assume the worst.

<comment><USER7> Failure to Appear is failure to comply with a court summons, not failure to pay a parking ticket. There is definitely more to this story.

<comment><USER8> Get a ticket, you get a choice between paying the fine and appearing in court to contest it. Guess what happens when you do neither.

<comment><USER7> In the US? You get a court summons delivered by mail. Then you should probably go to court.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unsurprisingly people who have done long stretches of time in Norway's prison system disagree with this article. Only a few prisoners enjoy the freedom of this island, which is equivalent to a trustee camp in a US min security prison. The rest who were given 10+ year sentences are in complete isolation in what the media loves to refer to as hotel prisons. In these cells everything is provided for you including your own shower, therefore there's no reasons for the guards to ever let you out and you stay in there 23hrs per day. Because the media calls them hotels, it prevents any prisoner from being able to complain and be taken seriously, so often these guys will either light their cells on fire and hopefully get transferred to one of the older style jails so they can talk to other inmates, or they just kill themselves.

<comment><USER10> Do you have a source where we can read more? Everything I'm finding is an article gushing about how humane Norway's prisons are. I keep finding headlines like "Twice as many suicides in Norwegian prisons" from The Norway Post, but their site won't actually load for me, and the Google cache on those results looks like it's probably their homepage.

I wasn't able to find a lot, but I did find this: [https://www.kriminalvarden.se/globalassets/publikationer/for...](https://www.kriminalvarden.se/globalassets/publikationer/forskningsrapporter/prison- suicide-in-12-countriespdf)

That claims that the suicide rate per 100k in norway is 127. According to this:

[https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=194](https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=194)

The US had around 20 in the same timeframe. Apparently local jails are worse, at around 40-50:

[https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/08/04/why-jails- have...](https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/08/04/why-jails-have-more- suicides-than-prisons#.sabBFJ6CE)

So what I've found so far seems to back you up: We're looking at Norway being something like an order of magnitude worse when it comes to prisons. But I'd like to find better data.

<comment><USER9> Norway also exports prisoners to the Netherlands to serve time as they are at capacity in some facilities. Renting a foreign countries' prison is not mentioned by the media over here touting the Norwegian system.

My source is primarily from anecdotes of friends I knew arrested in Oslo who spent long periods of isolation during pretrial and were told by other prisoners which jails to avoid getting transfered to, all of which are the new prisons because they are extreme in isolation. There's some other anecdotes here comparing old style jails to Bergen "luxury" prison [https://youtu.be/iA1L2kg3wRw](https://youtu.be/iA1L2kg3wRw) and here [https://youtu.be/iWhdzIJMEmQ](https://youtu.be/iWhdzIJMEmQ) talking about Norway's most hated man Anders Breivik who like everybody else assumed life in a Norwegian prison would be easy until they experienced the reality of solitary confinement. Even worse, because Breivik sued and won a lawsuit against the prison for isolation an appeals court was forced to overturn that decision because he is Breivik and a terrorist monster so there was political pressure to do so, and this means the top court in Norway has officially ruled that solitary confinement does not violate the prisoner's human rights.

There's also papers in journals around about disabled minimum security prisoners in Norway being forced into isolation in these new prisons as the trustee camps and old jails can't accommodate them, of which I can't find immediately.

<comment><USER11> Anders Breivik isn't the best case for setting a precedence, as far as I could read the ruling was grounded in the fact that he was dangerous and that other prisoners would be a danger to him.

Obviously, that case has particularities that do not transfer to other cases. Such as the man being universally hated.

But it is true, that Norwegian prison system isn't perfect. And unnecessary pretrial isolation justified as restricting contact to outside conspirators is not uncommon.

All that said, Norway is the still the best place start your criminal career :)

<comment><USER12> > _Anders Breivik isn 't the best case for setting a precedence, as far as I > could read the ruling was grounded in the fact that he was dangerous and > that other prisoners would be a danger to him._

Norway has civil law rather than common law - doesn't this mean that this decision doesn't work as precedent, as that's only really seen in common law?

<comment><USER13> > Norway has civil law rather than common law - doesn't this mean that this > decision doesn't work as precedent, as that's only really seen in common > law?

Precedent exists in civil law systems also. The difference is that in civil law systems precedent is generally seen as persuasive rather than binding, and lower-level judges have greater freedom to disregard precedent than in common law systems. That said, I think the difference between common law and civil law systems is a matter of degree rather than a stark boundary. Even when they aren't formally speaking bound by precedent, lower civil law courts will tend to respect the past rulings of the higher courts and apply them–no judge likes being overturned on appeal. And, in common law systems, not all precedents are binding, some are merely persuasive; and there is the procedure of "distinguishing" – [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinguishing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinguishing) – which enables judges to justify not following a precedent even while still formally affirming it as binding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is it possible to punish and rehabilitate at the same time? I ask partly because I have small kids. When they do bad things, I try to focus on educating them and not punishing. Then again, most of the bad things they do (making a mess, being too loud, etc.) are relatively benign. If they were to do something really horrible and victimize some other kid, I would probably punish them, but at the same time I would hope I could teach them never to do such a thing again.

I think that's the moral dilemma with prison systems. It's easy in abstract to say that we should just focus on rehabilitation and take this utilitarian argument about what's best for society. But I know that if, for example, someone were to harm my children, I would have trouble being convinced that that person needs free college and housing (partly paid for by me). Even if that statistically led to a better outcome for society, it would not seem like justice; rather it would seem that person is being rewarded for harming my family. This I think is a general problem with utilitarianism - that when we just focus on group outcomes, we sometimes lose sight of things like individual rights and justice, messy moral concepts that don't always create optimal group results.

Maybe there is some way to do both things or differentiate between types of criminals. I don't really have a solution. Just posing the conundrum.

<comment><USER15> Every situation involves them losing their freedom. Even in this cage free prison they are stuck there under someone else's control. This is a punishment, and I don't see why justice needs more than this. A victim may wish for harsher punishment, but that won't actually help their problems.

<comment><USER16> Totally agree. Vengeance sounds great until you get it - and you realize you still have the same problems, and maybe a few new ones.

Perhaps like rehabilitating offenders, we also need to rehabilitate victims as well. Being a victim can be as troubling than being an offender because it's not really in your control. This can really be hard on people, especially mental health, PTSD, anxiety, fear of people, etc.

I'm not even sure such a system exists - it seems like the victim would be on their own for finding care and help with that?

<comment><USER5> In the Netherlands there is a program for exactly that, "slachtofferhulp" ("victim help"). I'm not entirely sure what it entails, but I've been offered it even after merely witnessing the shop on the corner of my street being robbed from a distance (the thief ran past me just as I stepped outside my house, so I made a statement to the police).

Well okay he did threaten me, raising the knife while saying "don't even think about it" [standing in his way/stopping him]. But he didn't come at me, and I was certain I could have outrun him if he did (by running towards the shop, which he was focused on getting away from, after all), I remained at distance. Of course, this being the Netherlands, there was about zero risk the guy would pull a gun (especially after brandishing a rather cheap looking chef's knife).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A few weeks ago, running the subway in a major North American city, I kept admiring how people were polite and waited for other people to leave the trains before entering, how many times I saw someone give up their seats for the elderly (not that they really needed, there were a lot of empty seats elsewhere). That got me thinking if those _same_ people would be as polite if they were in the _same_ train but with 20x more people around. I think extreme situations are a great equalizer in crowded situations and it's my feeling they would behave the same: not wait for anyone, not give up seats, etc.

My point is, what works for Norway (population: 5.2m, prison population: 3874 or 0.0745% [0]) is never going to work for Brazil (population: 207m, prison population: 659020 or 0.31% [1]).

I like the idea of these idyllic prisons but inmates that will fit those are the exception here. Nevertheless, the system should offer them and help good inmates to be removed from the terrible traditional prisons so they don't become worse. It's often said that prisons are like college for criminals.

I don't know if this system could handle things like this: [http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/60-killed-beheaded- gri...](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/60-killed-beheaded-grisly- brazil-prison-riot-170102185216472.html)

In summary, I love the idea but let's not pretend that by just having those prisons that things will change drastically. It's a complex situation and there are problems everywhere (bad laws, slow courts, poverty, etc).

0 - [http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/norway](http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/norway)

1 - [http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/brazil](http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/brazil)

<comment><USER18> "You can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners", was actually said by a Russian–he knew what he was talking about.

The US could start by no longer jailing drug consumers or first-time low-level street dealers. It just really really doesn't work anyway. That would reduce the prison population by what? 2/3? Suddenly you have 3x the budget and space, which should allow for quite a few improvements.

But what really needs to be done with it the basic idea of prison as some sort of moral retribution. Come up with a formula to quantify and compare the outcomes of the criminal justice system, then start maximising. The US could easily study the effects of prison and other punishments (as well as social programs, medial intervention etc) in every detail imaginary.

(Also I don't quite get your analogy. Are you saying Americans tend to be violent because there are too many of them for one country? FWIW the US is No 182 in terms of population density, barely ahead of Norway at No. 202. Far far ahead are Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and most of Europe, all of which have only a fraction of the violent crime of the US)

<comment><USER19> > The US could start by no longer jailing drug consumers or first-time low- > level street dealers. It just really really doesn't work anyway. That would > reduce the prison population by what? 2/3? Suddenly you have 3x the budget > and space, which should allow for quite a few improvements.

Nothing like that: [https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/rel...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/releasing- drug-offenders-wont-end-mass-incarceration/amp). Releasing every prisoner with a drug crime as their most serious offense would reduce the prison population by 14%. (Almost all that is low level dealers--few people are in prison for mere possession.)

It would be a good step, but people overestimate how big an impact it would have.

<comment><USER20> 14% is huge, especially considering how many people commit crime because their life was destroyed by a drug conviction (their own or their parent's) leading to further crime.

<comment><USER21> John Pfaff studies this at Fordham and also rebuts this variant of the argument: if you look, there's no strong correlation between people _ever_ convicted of _any_ drug crime and later sentencing.

(His book, _Locked In_, is pretty great).

Reminder: nobody, including Pfaff, is saying it's good we lock up drug offenders like this. It's bad, and we should stop. It's just not a solution to mass incarceration. To address that, we need an across-the-board fix for aggressive prosecution, which is what appears to be the most important factor ratcheting up prison populations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This article is a fine example of IYI - "intellectual yet idiot" as Taleb terms it. Verbal cleverness + plausible statistics + apples/oranges comparison = what? Equals: "We have the answer to everything, but sadly the rulers and electorate aren't as wise/clever/compassionate as us." Others in this thread have pointed out specific fallacies in this article - for example there are prisoners in the US using chainsaws and axes; there are prisoners in Norway in solitary confinement who would be in general population in a US prison.

But let's zoom up to the bigger syndrome. Notice the author quotes at least one offender, but doesn't bother talking to any corrections officers. Did it occur to him that someone who worked in a prison for 20 years might know a little bit more about corrections than someone who read a bunch of studies and statistics?

Symptomatic of a broader problem - the chattering classes, who consume and generate information, are increasingly cut off from the real world, and increasingly influential. Of course it's easy to have opinions about how something "should" work when you have no experience and no skin in the game.

<comment><USER23> 20 years of individual experience does not give you nearly as much data as "a bunch of studies and statistics". Being glib about the scientific method doesn't make you better than it.

<comment><USER22> Adam just raised seed funding to build the next great mobile app. He needs a high performance back end which will support rapid iteration. He looks at two candidates for tech lead:

Bob has 20 years experience in server software development and led the back- end development at a previous mobile startup.

Charlie is an econ PHD from Yale and has many statistics at his fingertips about software development. He has never written any software.

Who should Adam hire?

<comment><USER23> These scenarios are not analogous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The author wrote: "In America some prisoners are released after long sentences with little more than clothes and a bus fare."

Rubbish. In the county where I live, Essex in MA, inmates are given the clothes they were wearing when arrested and a ride to the courthouse where they were convicted, and turned loose. Pity the guy arrested in May who gets out in January. They shoplift at the local Marshalls on their way home. I wonder why?

<comment><USER2> This is definately not rubbish.

I have been released twice from the Florida DOC, both times from a panhandle camp (Gulf C.I) that was approximately 9 hours from my home.

They definitely DO NOT give you the clothes "you were arrested in" as long ago those clothes were thrown away (at the "reception center" along with your cell phone, which was almost certainly stolen by the COs and/or convicts, and all other property you may have had)

My first time through, in 2004, my ex-wife actually sent me a beautiful set of clothes to be released in. They were of course "lost". She was so upset when she came to pick me up the assholes in release _were actually threatening to lock her and /or me up_ because she was making such a stink about me having no clothes for release.

I ended up getting very ill fitting cheap-ass pants and a white t-shirt, and back then, a $100 dollar bill. That's it. Thankfully, I had her to pick me up and drive me home.

The second time through I wasn't so lucky. In 2014 I was given the same shit clothes, only $50 this time as they changed the release policy, and a bus ticket. That is it. No cell phone, no wallet...nothing.

It sounds like you are talking about jail, not prison.

<comment><USER24> Yes, correct, I'm talking about the Essex County Jail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> tuna-piano Why are we looking at Norway? Because it is doing something right, or because it fits the authors preplanned narrative?

Singapore has much lower crime stats than Norway and the USA [1,2]. Let's take a look at how Singapore treats its prisoners.

The punishment for even minor crimes (like graffiti) includes caning[3]. They stick you in a prison cell for months, and on some random morning, they will wake you up and give you the sentenced number of hard beatings to your backside. The beating is done by someone with specialized training to inflict maximum pain (while remaining safe). So for months, every day you are scared, never sleeping soundly, as you don't know if this will be the night of your beating.

-Would the graffiti rate in the USA go up or down if the USA imposed the same penalties as Singapore?

-Would reducing recidivism rates by 20-50%, as the article claims possible, really be enough to lower crime in the USA to a OECD average level [4]?

-Norway and Singapore each have ~5M people. Singapore has 130 rapes a year, Norway has 1,000. How do you justify leaving the Norway justice system in place to the additional 800 rape victims in Norway, when a better system for reducing crime has been invented?[5]

Maybe the US is stuck in middle-no-mans land that leads to bad outcomes. To address this, they could either make prisons into hotels/universities (Norway) or impose stricter penalties (Singapore). But if someone did something terrible to one of my family members, I know which system I'd prefer.

[1] [http://www.nationmaster.com/country- info/compare/Norway/Sing...](http://www.nationmaster.com/country- info/compare/Norway/Singapore/Crime)

[2] [http://www.nationmaster.com/country- info/compare/Singapore/U...](http://www.nationmaster.com/country- info/compare/Singapore/United-States/Crime)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore)

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate)

[5] Of course, it's never fully accurate to measure systems by comparing numbers across different cultures/measurement systems. The main point remains though.

<comment><USER25> _> Norway and Singapore each have ~5M people. Singapore has 130 rapes a year, Norway has 1,000. How do you justify leaving the Norway justice system in place to the additional 800 rape victims in Norway, when a better system for reducing crime has been invented?_

I feel obligated to point out that you are assuming that the rate of reporting (and being believed by the authorities making these statistics!) (EDIT: as well as the strictness of the legal definition thereof) is equal in both countries. I have my doubts about that.

<comment><USER26> Scandinavian countries have a wide range of definitions of rape (which is a good thing). That means a lot of situations that are not classified as rape in other countries are included.

In 2015, 97 of the rapes in Norway were classified as "assault rapes". That means that someone used violence/force, drugs or threats to rape her (or him).

One example taken from Singapore is that if a woman is penetrated anally it is not classified as rape, but sexual assault.

Another example taken from Singapore is that a married man can by definition not commit rape against his wife unless they have been living apart. Marital status does not give any protection in Scandinavia when someone says no.

Seeing how the definition of rape in Singapore is so different than in Scandinavia makes me think we can't compare the numbers without giving proper context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The better way is to reduce poverty. You can build whatever "rehibilitation" program you want, but if the future holds no promise, why follow the rules?

</comment><comment><USER28> prisons are just the beginning. when you get out you can find yourself prevented from obtaining a job, a residence, and even assistance, because of local, state, and federal laws.

The Renew Act of 2017 is trying to expand the age limits for expungement of records of first time offenders.[1] its a start but there are more opportunities to fix the system post prison too. you don't even have to go to prison to have a record that prevents you from being productive in society.

one of favorite examples are the volunteers for smoke jumping, putting out forest fires. there are states where its illegal for a person who did this job in prison to obtain the same outside. if we keep up the barriers where do we truly expect people to go?

[1] [http://dailysignal.com/2017/05/24/heres-smart-modest- increas...](http://dailysignal.com/2017/05/24/heres-smart-modest-increase- second-chances-deserving-ex-offenders/)

<comment><USER29> No idea why this got downvoted. The lack of job opportunities for people out of jail is a real problem.

<comment><USER30> Because the people who read HN think they know everything. My comment was downvoted even more than this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> From a related Economist article [0]:

"Oregon, which insists that programmes to reform felons are measured for effectiveness, has a recidivism rate less than half as high as California's."

Assuming it's not a statistical blip, I wonder why Oregon is so different to California. Seems to me that a politician who promises to reduce the recidivism rate and thereby save taxpayer dollars would get more votes.

[0] [http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21722642-lot-known- abo...](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21722642-lot-known-about-how- reform-prisoners-far-too-little-done-americas-prisons-are)

</comment><comment><USER32> The US has minimum security prisons also and just like this one, you have to qualify one way or the other.

[https://www.forbes.com/2009/07/13/best-prisons-cushiest- mado...](https://www.forbes.com/2009/07/13/best-prisons-cushiest-madoff- personal-finance-lockups_slide_2.html?thisspeed=25000)

<comment><USER33> Yeah, this article is a bit confusing. The US has prisons just like this. Prisoners who commit less severe crimes or prisoners who have a good record are eligible.

Do journalists think every US prison is like Pelican Bay? Do they think Shawshank Redemption is representative of the norm in the US?

<comment><USER34> Like any other commercial media, the main goal of _The Economist_ is to get readers/subscribers. Slanted, inflammatory stories do a better job at that than objective, well-researched pieces that present a fuller picture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The USA has "boys homes" that do this. As a child, I attended one such place where we all had to grow our own vegetables, to this day I can grow vegetables.

Privatized prisons (in the USA) are money makers, holding mostly low to medium risk offenders, you can even buy shares on the stock market.

With more police on patrol there will be less crime. Spend less money on prisons and more money on local police force.

<comment><USER36> I did a stint in a state-operated group home for boys in 2006 and we definitely did not 'grow our own vegetables'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The American system of justice is not to rehabilitate, but to humiliate, punish, and torture. Worse, we outsource this to the private prison system which has an incentive to keep people in prison. You go to prison in America you will be brutally tortured, humiliated, and will emerge far worse than when you went in. That is the fault of every American citizen - not the politicians - but the people. Because it is the citizenry who punishes the politician that appears even remotely soft on prisoners, or supports prison reform. America is a vengeful society, overflowing with righteous indignation.

<comment><USER38> > overflowing with righteous indignation

As a non-American, I have to say this is the most puzzling thing about the US: The abundance of anger and indignation in public debate. I guess it's a natural consequence of a winner-takes-all voting system in combination with a vast and heterogeneous population.

<comment><USER39> On the contrary. <rapidly fashions tinfoil hat> The US is a representative democracy with only 2 credible political parties. In such a system, if you are one of the incumbents, it pays to polarise every issue: that way no third part can emerge. At the very worst, you are out of power for 8-12 years, but you _always_ come back into power. If you manage to get you hooks into the media, then you can encourage _them_ to polarise every issue too. They'll love it, because confirmation bias is a powerful force. It leads to rabid followers of the various institutions -- who deride the followers of the other institutions.

Hmmm... tin foil hats are comfy. I think I'll wear this one for a while...

<comment><USER38> A winner-takes-all voting system results in only two parties (Regional third parties can exist, but not national ones). No conspiracy required, only maths.

<comment><USER40> I studied comparative politics in college and this is absolutely true. Different voting system have different outcomes due to the nature of the rules. Unsurprisingly, every attempt to make a more fair voting/systems ends up with its own pros and cons, such as giving minority parties disproportionate influence due to need for coalitions.

<comment><USER41> In Canada, we have a first past-the-post voting system (if you get the majority of the votes in the riding, you get the seat) and we have at least 3 parties federally (Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP). Technically, we have 4 (including the Bloc Québecois but they're only in one province). So, it's entirely possible to have a winner take all voting system and have more than two parties. Things have fluctuated over the years and we've had 5 parties when the Progressive Conservatives had a split and the Reform Party was created, but they eventually merged once they realized that they couldn't win if they split the votes.

There's been at least one attempt to try and change the voting system, but the side involved in presenting the pros of the new system really did a terrible job.

<comment><USER38> Well, it sort of depends on the size of the "voting blocs" in which there are winner-takes-all. If the voting bloc was a single person then you have proportional representation, more or less. In the US, the voting blocs are the states, and they are usually very big, so the US is very far from PR.

How big are these voting blocs in Canada?

Anyway, it's interesting to me that even PR systems usually end up having two major parties (with a host of smaller parties around them). I guess that's because many voters cannot bother to educate themselves about the smaller parties or because there's usually one big question of the day that can be answered in a yes/no fashion...

<comment><USER37> I work in lobbying so I'm on the periphery of something very interesting: The idea of voting blocs, and being able to identify who is going to vote which way, based on discernible facts such as race, gender, culture, religion, occupation, income, etc. This is the new holy grail in politics.

I believe that with the right algorithms and data stream (i.e. Facebook) you can calculate a parties relative strength in the electorate, based on voter characteristics. Then apply layers of other data. For example, apply crime statistics to it. Ex. Murder victim has characteristics that would make it more likely than not they are liberal. Democrats -1. Murderer is caught and has characteristics that they are more than likely Conservative. Republicans -1. Result null.

Terrorist walks into a gay nightclub and kills 49 people who have characteristics that they are most likely o vote liberal. Democrats -49. Terrorist enters a military base and murderers 13 people who have characteristics that would appear most likely to vote conservative. Republicans -13. All +/\- a statistical norm.

Very cold calculus... I think government officials and political parties are doing this right now, harvesting immense data to say with certainty: In a particular voting district, we can reasonably say with x turnout we will have a result of y; x1:y1, etc.

<comment><USER42> Yes, they are.

[https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-the-trump-campaign- buil...](https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-the-trump-campaign-built-an- identity-database-and-used-facebook-ads-to-win-the-election-4ff7d24269ac)

The better link is probably [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-27/inside- the...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-27/inside-the-trump- bunker-with-12-days-to-go) but it isn't loading right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Would a prison dichotomy be a good idea? That is, the reformable criminals go to rehabilitation, and the ones for which there is no hope go in for life (or at least until old age)?

<comment><USER22> But we sort of have that already. First offences tend to get lesser sanctions, including probation, which is an attempt to curb bad behavior without imprisonment. In California at least, the three strikes law means that three convictions above a certain threshold result in a life sentence. This sometimes makes the news when the third conviction is relatively minor, like shoplifting. California also has lifetime confinement for dangerous child molestors after completion of sentence.

<comment><USER43> _This sometimes makes the news when the third conviction is relatively minor, like shoplifting_

FWIW this has changed. Ever since prop 36, the third strike needs to be a serious violent crime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This doesn't apply in the USA, since for our citizens the purpose of our prison system is not to rehabilitate, but to inflict savage vengeance.

<comment><USER45> Perhaps it's a reflection of Christianity. It's the will of God that evildoers go to hell, to be tormented by other demons like themselves.

<comment><USER46> > Perhaps it's a reflection of Christianity.

It's a reflection of Puritanism, not Christianity as a whole.

<comment><USER45> What I meant is that it could be a manifestation of an archetype in the Christian imagination - the 5th circle of hell. I did not have any conscious implementation of a doctrine for dealing with punishment in mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> American prison is actuall not a system but a culture. Think of how hard it is to change a culture, you probably need new leadership with enough power like a CEO at Microsoft to do something drastic in a reasonable amount of time, say 10 year frame.

</comment><comment><USER48> It should be well known that the public, and often the judicial system, see prison as punishment and not rehabilitation.

Another portion sees at as constitutionally-granted slave labor or an opportunity for profit.

</comment><comment><USER49> Maybe some convicts need exile not incarceration.

And petty criminals need to be reeducated.

</comment><comment><USER50> Who wrote that article? I can't find the source anywhere.

<comment><USER51> "The Economist is 160+ years old, and back then anonymity was the norm. Then the industry went on a slightly disturbing path toward writer celebrity, and we simply chose not to participate."

[https://andreaskluth.org/2008/11/20/why-the-economist-has- no...](https://andreaskluth.org/2008/11/20/why-the-economist-has-no-bylines/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> A bullet is cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER53> So what is the solution keep criminals in society?

<comment><USER54> One takeaway from the article (if nothing else) was to give them responsibility. I like that. Demanding something _from_ prisoners is more likely to change them than punishment and waiting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> A discussion about disenfranchisement conducted by the least disenfranchised people on earth. Pretty funny.

</comment><comment><USER55> One advantage the Norwegian prison system has is that it is filled with Norwegians, I would be careful generalizing conclusions from it.

That being said, one concept I rarely see discussed is the use of basic income as an incentive against crime, particularly violent crime: if you lost your citizens dividend after conviction and slowly earned it back every year upon release that would act as a powerful and immediate incentive to avoid violence.

<comment><USER56> Wouldn't it increase the likelihood of further crime, due to lack of income?</comment></comment>


Why Composition Is Harder with Classes - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/javascript-scene/why-composition-is-harder-with-classes-c3e627dcd0aa <comment><USER2> very useful information about java..</comment>


Ebook Sales Surpass Hardcovers for First Time in US - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2012/06/17/ebook-hardcover-sales/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really surprising news, but I guess it's now official. I personally still like physical books. Do you prefer ebooks or real books??</comment>


Ask HN: Good beginner resources to learn chemistry - <AUTHOR> I never did much chemistry in school or college and mainly concentrated on biology and physics. I've started to gain an interest in Chemistry especially Biochemistry but am finding my lack of basics holding me back.<p>Does anyone have any good resources online or books that they could recommend? <comment><USER2> If you have a physics background you might find General Chemistry from Linus Pauling interesting and approachable:

[https://www.amazon.com/General-Chemistry-Dover- Books/dp/0486...](https://www.amazon.com/General-Chemistry-Dover- Books/dp/0486656225/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=general+chemistry&qid=1593204808&sr=8-2)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks that looks good will take a look!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> One of the most inspiring things about chemistry texts or videos is that they are tales from laboratories you don't have.

That's also one of the biggest disadvantages.

You'll never have all those labs, if you actually want a lab, you'll be lucky when you only have a single one. What kind of lab would that be anyway? Your choices will always be dramatically limited compared to the possibilities, so you'll have to make the best of what you can get. And it's always been that way and will never change.

It's good to decide early how suitable hands-on work and/or experimentation are going to be for your particular situation.

But I don't think you can make a very informed decision without a lab of some kind to contribute student experiences at a comparable level to the classroom- type work. Not completely different than high school or university programs.

Go through a high school general chemisrty text with its associated elementary lab manual, and skim through the entire things in tandem, without slowing down to go deep or even begin to grasp any difficult concepts, just get through it fast and complete. Don't do the problems don't do the lab exercises (_experiments_), just look at what they are and keep in mind how you would develop the proficiency for these efforts in the future, and that the answers and results are available.

Think about what kind of progress you would like to make after that. Some directions will be much more mathematically intense than others, and there is also an infinite choice of toxicity and unstable reactions in a most natural science way. Some lab work will be very expensive, and other efforts may often come within reach at low cost. You should now be getting an idea of what achievement it takes mathematically and in a hands-on way with chemicals & apparatus, to go toward an intended goal. These achievements must come in advance or in parallel to the chemistry books.

With that underway go through another high school textbook/labmanual covering introductory material from a different educator's point of view. It should be a lot quicker this time, you might even slow down and think about some _homework_ problems rather than just reading past them this time. The difference will be enlightening, you will find details and entire chapter concepts not in common between both texts.

One key universal item is common ordinary pH. At this level I suggest a simple lab with litmus & pH sensitive papers, aquarium and swimming-pool or spa reagents and other basic low-hazard chemicals like vinegar and baking soda. More potent acids & alkalies are not for the faint at heart, like muriatic acid or soda lye. You're going to need safety glasses anyway, plus simple glassware and maybe a buret or weighing scale for measurement, or at least medicine droppers so you can count drops. Each type of material or apparatus has its own sometimes extensive documentation available, and this needs to be studied just as much or more than the textbook concepts, especially the health, safety, and environmental considerations.

At this point you should be able to structure a way to make major progress toward mastery of a single concept such as pH at the high school level, according to both those texts and lab manuals, without exactly following any one particular curriculum, and with no real fancy lab. With no deadlines or exams, make as much or as little progress as you would like. The chapters on pH, which you first quickly skimmed, will now each require more hours of study than the initial skimming of the entire year's textbook.

You can refer to other sources, or more advanced sources to help get you past the high school level for pH alone, and you will find that referring to some of the non-pH chapters will still be helpful even when your focus is intentionally limited to something like pH for expediency.

You'll be going through the university-level general chemistry books next, so might as well get the books in advance so they can serve as references beforehand to help you more quicky get past high school level.

Once you have exceeded the high school level to your satisfaction for pH, then start all over again skimming the university-level freshman chemistry texts which cover about the same material but at a university level this time.

Keep or improve your mathematical chops to your desired amount as you go, and for hands-on experience at least get a second-hand pH meter and electrodes and develop the supporting apparatus to zero in and get you past freshman pH if nothing else.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow great post thanks for that!

I actually did a semester on introductory chemistry but was completely over my head and kind of scraped by and forgot most of it, didn't help that I hadn't done secondary/high school chemistry. I guess what has really sparked my interest is that I've gotten into brewing beer and the chemistry/biology side of things has made me interested again. The impact of different minerals present in the water to the biochemistry side of brewing so would just like to understand better the chemistry behind it. pH plays an important role in beer making so was already planning to get a pH meter anyway but could use it for other experiments as you've mentioned</comment></comment>


Do Google and Apple Make CES Irrelevant? - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/4341522.html

<comment><USER2> Was CES ever relevant to the people that care about Google and Apple announcements? I've never followed CES much so I'm actually curious.

Looking at the list of past CES announcements, most of them seem to be centered around the video game and TV space.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Electronics_Show#Notab...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Electronics_Show#Notable_product_introductions)

<comment><USER3> I don't think CES really targeted those people, no.

With the exception of the huge companies (Intel, Microsoft, Sony, etc), it seems generally focused on product companies looking for distribution deals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This story's just silly. It doesn't say anything about the subject, and gives only Lenovo as an example. What is it trying to say? I don't know...</comment>


Special Case: Reverting to Software Engineering Career - <AUTHOR>

Hey,<p>I'm a Computer Scienece Graduate (2010 Batch). After Graduation I joined an MNC as a Sales Engineer (..for an entirely different field..Industrial Automatiom..dumb move !..I know..it was the money I guess..) Its been almost 4 years and now I would like to switch to Web Dev field as my current job sucks and I don't foresee any professional growth. I have already started learning Rub on Rails, Javascript, HTML, CSS..plus I am aready enrolled in Stanford's CS106A course to catch up on the basics. I am at a cross road - Join a Coding bootcamp or go for a Masters degree in Computer Engineering. Getting a Masters degree is a lot of commitment interms of time and money..and joining a coding bootcamp in US/Canada means I wont really get a job in Us/Canada as I will be an international Applicant. I'm 26 years old..is it too late to switch back now..I just dont know what to do ?? Pls  Advice... :(( <comment><USER2> That's an easy one. You don't need a Masters to work as a computer programmer.

Having an undergraduate degree of some form is handy, as it will prevent certain doors from closing and ensure that you don't end up having to put in a few years at a lowball rate. But a Masters degree doesn't really tick any boxes for pretty much anybody in this industry. It might get you a few grand extra in your initial offer, but probably not enough to offset the opportunity cost.

Coding Bootcamps and similar things won't really help either. Building things will.

You already know how to program. Go register a domain name, build something cool, and stick it there. Better still, build something that people will pay money for each month. Either way, conjure something into existence that you can point prospective employers to and say "I built this" (and thus "I can build things like this" and "I will build them for _you_ if you hire me").

Keep your sales job until you get the offer you want, then simply step into your new life.

<comment><USER3> is it that easy ? I mean, building something is one thing, but attracting new clients and making them pay every month requires "A good idea which people are in need of" AND "Good marketing skills to spread the word around".

Don't get me wrong, I am almost at the same page as of OP (though i am working as a dev but working on legacy technologies) and I also want to get out of it and move to some better opportunity but now i feel so rusted. I have been trying to keep up with technologies by reading about them but to prove that I know them, I need some thing to buiild on it and for that i need an idea too :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I did something similar: after working a few years in programming I took 6 years off to study Greek & Latin in grad school, then came back to development around 2010. To top it off my undergrad was an English B.A. from a small mediocre liberal arts college.

It was actually pretty easy. If you already have a CS degree and have simply been doing something else for 4 years, I doubt you'll have trouble getting offers. You just need something to prove that you're competent. Skip the masters and code school, build a webapp that does something interesting, and show that to your potential employers. Bonus points if you can charge for it!

For tactics I'd say don't quit your other job until you've got an offer.

Best of luck to you, and remember that it's going to be all right!

</comment><comment><USER5> It is never too late to switch!! Believe me.

1\. Start building up an online/offline social and professional network of developers, dev/tech evangelists

2\. Start researching and looking into languages that you are interested in personally, don't restrict yourself to 'marketable/hireable' programming skills

3\. Start building up your dev profile - be more active on GitHub, participate in online communities, blog about your projects, open up a website to put your projects online

4\. Take part in online challenges as well as hackathons to prototype your profile, get in touch with other people and dev evangelists (many are sponsors so have a go at their APIs)

</comment><comment><USER6> You should have come to us when you were 25. :)

You already know how to program and you have degree. You just have to break into the industry. A side project where you build a web app, put it on the internet, will be very helpful in getting a developer job.

You should do the Masters if you want to learn another area of CS more deeply, such as Machine Learning, Distributed Systems or Programming Languages and Compilers. This is not necessary if you are interested in becoming a professional programmer. It won't make you more money on the outset, but it could help you develop other skills, but it will make you a better critical thinker, writer and give you a network that will be valuable to you.

</comment><comment><USER7> Let me get this straight... you're only 26, your current job sucks, your current job has no growth potential, and you are asking what to do? Jeez.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why dont you just build something with your knowledge (a fun side project) - forget the MS and taking a code course. You can't learn the in's and out's of developing in a language without doing it.

So do.</comment>


Pray Someone Steals Your Startup Idea - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ChrisHerd/pray-someone-steals-your-startup-idea-f1ca0492b683 <comment><USER2> This is why I find it funny when I meet people who guard their startup idea like it's top secret. I find it better to share what I'm working so I can get collaborators or critique.</comment>


Making Electronics out of Coal - <AUTHOR> https://news.mit.edu/2016/making-electronics-out-coal-0419 <comment><USER2> The resistive properties of coal are no surprise (7 orders of magnitude) since resistors have been made from carbon film and carbon composite for 50 years. I think the big problem there is whether the coal has a consistent resistence.

They talk about how much work it is to purify silicon, but won't the same problem exist for coal? Any semiconductor has to be doped to form transistors, diodes, etc. It also has to be pure so that the tiny geometries used for these devices can be reliably transferred from the masks.

Call me skeptical, but the material to make purified silicon is _more_ abundant than coal (and cheaper to mine). I think this will ultimately prove cost prohibitive.

<comment><USER3> But the cost of pure silicon is not due to the cost of the raw silicate. It is due to the energy requirements of purification. AFAIK

<comment><USER2> Right ... But my point was that coal costs more and will likely need costly purification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, but is it specifically about its chemistry and electrical properties that makes it interesting?

</comment><comment><USER4> oh great, more reasons to chop down the mountains</comment>


Cable lobby tries to stop state investigations into slow broadband speeds - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/cable-lobby-tries-to-stop-state-investigations-into-slow-broadband-speeds/ <comment><USER2> _State-level speed tests aren 't necessary, the cable and telecom lobby groups argued, because the FCC runs the Measuring Broadband America program to verify whether the largest ISPs' in-home broadband speeds match the providers' speed claims._

This is where it is astoundingly obvious that lobbyists have no technical sense whatsoever. It's analogous to saying "States shouldn't be allowed to determine their own optimal speed limits based on the terrain of their counties' geography ... or the conditions of the roads themselves. Potholes don't matter. Mountains, ice, etc., ... those local things are all irrelevant. Just tell us if it's a highway or rural road or freeway, and we'll let you know if it's allowing the best speed."

I understand why the telecoms are doing this. The ISPs don't want to have to upgrade infrastructure to deliver on their (often nationally)"advertised" promises. And behemoths like Comcast/Xfinity, Verizon, AT&T really don't want to invest in infrastructure that benefits only "the last mile" when they have impatient investors focused on the short-term stock price.

It's harder for a local company to lie to its customers... it will go out of business (or get sued into the ground) pretty quickly when it does. But for these entrenched behemoths, they just don't care. And that is really bad for almost everybody.

</comment><comment><USER3> The cable companies disgust me. First they want to neuter the FCC when they don't like a rule (net neutrality), now they want the FCC to step in when they don't like a state rule.

Companies dislike regulation, yet their constant stream of lies and half- truths make regulation necessary.

Spectrum is the latest champion: I get ads every week to upgrade to HS Internet + TV + Voice for only $29.95/month. Then the small print: that's $29.95/mo for each service, not total. You'd never know it from looking at the ads, and I didn't realize it for months. They should be forced to advertise this as $89.85/month in huge print, not $29.95.

</comment><comment><USER4> This title is horribly misleading. The actual point of contention is whether the FCC's rules on speed disclosure preempt rules enacted by the state. This isn't Big Cable paying off lawmakers to stop some 'investigation', this is companies trying to avoid having deal with 50 different speed disclosure laws, and it could go either way.

I don't necessarily like it, but as a matter of law my opinion is that Big Cable should win this one. Setting a uniform national standard is one of the situations where federal laws commonly preempt state laws and the lack of a uniform standard would be confusing to consumers.

<comment><USER5> I absolutely disagree for a number of reasons.

First, let's stop pretending that 50 state disclosure laws create some massive undue burden for a company that's big enough to be an ISP in all 50 states.

That would be a similar argument to saying that states shouldn't have minimum wages because it's "too hard" for Walmart to have 50 different state minimum wage laws. The only difference is disclosure laws are _vastly_ more simple than labor laws.

Second, even if you assume the cable industry should have a single uniform standard, that's up to Congress, not the FCC to determine, so not only should Big Cable lose this on the grounds that state-level consumer protections are a good thing, they should on the grounds that the FCC has absolutely no authority to do this.

<comment><USER6> > _let 's stop pretending that 50 state disclosure laws create some massive > undue burden for a company that's big enough to be an ISP in all 50 states_

It's survivable, if inconvenient, for Comcast. It nukes the potential for upstarts. This "only big companies are in this industry so it's fine if we add a bunch of onerous regulation" attitude is self-defeating.

> _the cable industry [having] a single uniform standard...[is] up to > Congress, not the FCC_

Congress delegated rule-making authority to the FCC with the Communications Act of 1934 [1]. This is how agencies work [2].

[1] [http://www.legisworks.org/congress/73/publaw-416.pdf](http://www.legisworks.org/congress/73/publaw-416.pdf)

[2] [http://www.theintelligencer.com/local/article/Congressional-...](http://www.theintelligencer.com/local/article/Congressional- authority-to-delegate-power-10440570.php)

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't it make sense for a startup to begin in a single state and only expand once they have enough money/time to comply with laws and regulations in other states?

<comment><USER6> Depends on your technology. I used to finance satellites. State-by-state rules were a driving reason (for being-launched and yet-to-be launched constellations) behind most operators settling on selling bandwidth to ISPs, who have compliance and regulation figured out, versus trying to compete with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ah, Yes. American capitalism. Where the "Captains of Industry" wax lyrical about how "competition" and unbridled capitalism, are THE greatest and finest of things. But in reality, in American style capitalism, they pay people off, to kill/crush/stomp competition, while pleading that "regulation" is impeding their ability to do just that.

<comment><USER9> You have to at least admire how openly this occurs.

You'd think in a democracy everyone involved in what's the textbook-definition of corruption would try to somewhat obscure what's going on, but nope: it's all in the open.

<comment><USER8> True. But I would say its mostly in the open. We can guess from contributions and declared lobbyist visits.

Weasel worded bills and regulations in documents pushed through to old men who have mostly no idea or concept of what they are changing, but who only know the value of $$$ campaign or personal contributions isn't something I would call open.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems like this argument could backfire spectacularly. Isn't the cable lobby also relying on state authority to ban (or at least put gratuitous hurdles in the way of) municipal ISPs in several states?

</comment><comment><USER11> It's amazing how quickly technology is changing. I remember paying $350 a month for dual ISDN lines and getting a whopping 128Kbps. People were literally moving to certain apartments that had "high speed" 100Mbps connection shared to the entire complex.

I realize this article is about cable providers promising one thing, and delivering another, I think it's interesting how quickly we and technology adapt to high-speed links and immediately demands MORE MORE MORE! It's a great time to be alive.

<comment><USER12> 10 years ago people where getting 1Gbps bandwidth for <100$ a month in some areas. Talking about how fast things are moving when you reference stuff from 20+ years ago is hardly convincing.

PS: 10Gbps is being rolled out in some area yet many places are still at under 1/1,000th those speeds. The gap has nothing to do with back-haul capacity it's all about monopolies squeezing there customers as much as possible. Consider, South Korea has 1Gbit/s connections for $20 per month. Yet people in the US are paying ~10x as much for 1/10th the bandwidth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's sad to see the the us becoming a corporatocracy, maybe the idea of more controlling government is less of an evil than the status quo.

</comment><comment><USER14> For those who are not savvy, I'll do my best to explain why. I am not an expert but have a history in this industry at the technician level.

The worst possible thing that could happen to the telecom industry is for the government to expose how overcapacity most local networks are. We aren't talking Tier 1 Internet backbone networks. We are talking about local ISPs that usually fall into the category of Tier 2 or 3. That means they purchase "transit agreements" from Tier 1 networks to connect their users to the backbone. Most areas I have seen are way over capacity in need of upgraded equipment, too many splices on the cable, or limited bandwidth to their backbone connection to save money on overhead. Nobody wants to spend the money upgrading infrastructure for a market they are already making the maximum profit on. They do not want to send you a letter telling you that their network is miraculously upgrading to fiber and your speed will increase tenfold for no extra cost because copper is going away.

They will maintain the status quo for as long as possible. It is their only option to keep squeezing out every last cent they can on their current equipment and bandwidth agreements. Upgrading gets them very little in ROI. New shit is reserved for new markets like new roads going to high-end subdivisions.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think there is certainly some throttling going on for certain sites, although not everyone is technically savvy and doesn't realize that certain webservers et al., are only going to upload at a certain rate, which looks like capping, but is actually just a bandwidth limitation of the server you're connecting to. So even if you're paying for Gig Fiber service for instance, you're still limited by the bandwidth of the server you're connecting to.

Steam is great in this regard though, always maxes out my connection, even though I hardly game anymore.

<comment><USER16> That'd be a good explanation for small sites, but it doesn't hold up with the Netflix, Youtube, etc. of the world.

<comment><USER17> And maybe not even a good explanation for small sites. For $5/month your site has a 1Gbps connection out. (Linode)</comment></comment></comment>


Which hosting would you recommend for running startup? - <AUTHOR>

Which hosting would you recommend for running a startup? We use dreamhost now, but we heard that we need special hosting for web 2.0 projects.
Which one would advice us? Any ideas... please <comment><USER2> There is nothing "special" about Web 2.0, other than you likely need something with a decent database option.

I'd look at something like Slicehost, or more of a hosted server vs. shared server solution. Skip EC2 for now, and other things that are a little too progressive. You need (IMO) a solid stable base first, then look into elasticity when you get some mass.

If you want/need a dedicated server, send me an email I can get you setup with something nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> email@example.com

Look forward to hear from ya! Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Come on. <http://searchyc.com/hosting>

<comment><AUTHOR> Ups... i did't there is YC search, actually cound not find it. Thanks

<comment><USER4> Gabriel weinberg's FAQ is idfficult to google for:

[http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive#t...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive#toc79)

<comment><USER5> it really is; I ended up at this comment while searching for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Start on basic hosting and upgrade as needed. Ultimahosts.net, ASmallorange.com, Webfaction.com are good. Move up to Slicehost.. Rackspace... and if you're too big for Rackspace... you might already have the resources to start your own hosting company.

</comment><comment><USER7> If what you have works for you now, stick with it until you try to do something that doesn't work.

</comment><comment><USER8> KnownHost.com has been good to us, no complaints.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> thanks too all advices and comments</comment>


Ask HN: What is a "Cypherpunk"? - <AUTHOR> I watched a "From Cypherpunk to Ethereum" video on Youtube yesterday that discussed some of the history behind 'Cypherpunks'. Can someone elaborate on this origin, history, meaning of the term? <comment><USER2> The starting point might be the Cypherpunk's Manifesto: [https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html](https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html)</comment>


Virtual human built from more than 5000 slices of a real woman - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730404-000-virtual-human-built-from-more-than-5000-slices-of-a-real-woman/#bx304040B1 <comment><USER2> I remember as a kid going through a museum in Chicago and they had a display of 1/4" thick sliced bodies set in door sized glass plates. They were mounted so you could swing them like shopping for a poster at Target.

The part that struck me was that they were displayed on a large wall along a stair landing between floors. It was just so out of context and kind of sad. They donate their body to science and end up as a transitional space filler.

<comment><USER3> They were 1/2" slices, actually. That was the 1/2" Man and Woman Body Slices exhibit. They'd been there since the 1940s I think, but they moved them out a few years ago when the BodyWorlds exhibit was put in. I don't know if they ever came back.

The man was sliced horizontally and the woman was sliced vertically.

It was pretty close to the exhibit of 9 months of miscarried human embryos and fetuses in jars if I remember correctly.

I used to try to avoid that stairwell!

<comment><USER4> We have the same things here in France. A couple times every year, you are allowed to visit them at 2am, in the dark with only a flashlight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Visualization of this data from almost 20 years ago - I used it as example data for my PhD thesis:

[http://mepalmer.net/ibb/](http://mepalmer.net/ibb/)

The views are all pre-rendered. Sorry for the old school site, circa 1996!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing! It's... strangely horrifying to mess around with. At one point, it suddenly hit me that the same biological structures were thinking the thoughts I was having and operating my smartphone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Should also check out what's possible with VR tech for visualizations nowadays [http://youtu.be/MWGBRsV9omw](http://youtu.be/MWGBRsV9omw)

<comment><USER7> My reaction when he pulled the stent out was that went wrong then he said that is of course the stent.

When he flew the tour of the arteries was an actual verbal holy shit moment, I have an oesphagal problem and this kind of imaging would be frankly incredible.

I'd love to see what he could with a modern slide set from a high resolution state of the art MRI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For my bachelor thesis I did a Volume Rendering visualization of this dataset. You can have a look at it here: [https://vimeo.com/12199932](https://vimeo.com/12199932). Caching 16GB of data in the GPU.

<comment><USER9> We are all just bags of meat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> See also: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_Human_Project](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_Human_Project) (general info), [http://visiblehuman.epfl.ch/index.php](http://visiblehuman.epfl.ch/index.php) ('virtual an atomic construction kit'), [https://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/getting_data.html](https://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/getting_data.html) (source data, with sample pictures)

If you sign the necessary license, you can download the data for free.

</comment><comment><USER11> Has nobody noticed that the URL awkwardly skips to a footnote (/#bx304040B1)?

<comment><USER12> That bothered me too. You're not alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> No access, no fun.

</comment><comment><USER14> Did it included some fava beans and a nice chianti?

On a more serious note, I wonder how they actually cut these bodies? A band saw maybe?

<comment><USER15> You ask a good question. It's a shame you got downvoted.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/national/horizon/jan99/...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/national/horizon/jan99/body.htm)

> When the NLM advertised for bidders willing to cut a human body into thin > slices and photograph each slice, there was far more interest than anyone > anticipated. About 100 of the approximately 120 American medical schools, > collaborating in various combinations, formed six consortia to apply for the > contract.

> The field was narrowed to three. Each consortium was asked to submit > pictures of slices, taken 1 millimeter apart, from the abdomen of an animal > or human body. One millimeter is about the thickness of a dime. A committee > of anatomists and radiologists then chose the best. The winning bidder was a > consortium of institutions in Colorado, Texas and Maryland.

> The actual work on the cadavers – first a male, then a female – occurred at > the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. Under the > direction of two scientists, Victor Spitzer and David Whitlock, the bodies > first underwent head-to-toe CAT and MRI scans before being frozen solid.

> To make them easier to handle, the bodies then were cut into four pieces > with a special saw. Each of the three cuts – separating the body into > sections containing head, neck and thorax, abdomen and pelvis, thighs and > knees, and legs, ankles and feet – lost only 1.5 mm of tissue, represented > by black space in the stacked final images.

> It is more accurate to say that the cadavers were milled rather than sliced. > The bodies were packed in dry ice and surrounded by a slurry of frozen > alcohol at temperatures between minus 90 and minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

> Starting from one end of a body section, a rotary rasp ground down the > tissue to a specified depth. In the male, this depth was 1 mm. In the > anatomically more complicated female, it was .33 mm, providing three times > as much detail.

> Each round of milling exposed a smooth, rock-hard surface in which the > anatomical features were visible like the grain in a log. The surface then > was photographed using both digital and conventional film cameras before > removal of the next "cryosection."

> Each cycle required from three to 15 minutes to complete, and the Colorado > team could do about 50 each day. The work was meticulous because, once the > rasp started, there was no second chance. The tissue came off in a frozen > powder, which was collected, stored and ultimately "cremated in a respectful > manner," according to an NLM official.

<comment><USER14> > Starting from one end of a body section, a rotary rasp ground down the > tissue to a specified depth

Interesting. So they did not preserve the slices, but rather ground off shavings little-by-little. I had envisioned the process similar to slicing meat at the deli.

Looking at the pictures in the article again, you can actually see that the cadaver was frozen in a liquid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just saying that this is the creepiest goddamned title for an article I've ever read.

</comment><comment><USER17> This totally ruined my coffee break.

</comment><comment><USER18> So it's Docker For People</comment>


What is the best DeepLearning setup (laptop and Desktop) ubuntu - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> Hi any suggestions ?

</comment><comment><USER2> No laptop.

Any desktop with a 1080Ti</comment>


Angular vs. React – the tie breaker - <AUTHOR> https://www.airpair.com/angularjs/posts/angular-vs-react-the-tie-breaker <comment><USER2> TL;DR: The author thinks that React is amazing at everything, but detests JSX. Conversely, he hates Angular but loves Angular's directives. So he hacked together some code that lets him use Angular directives with React, which he thinks is great and everyone else in the world detests.

If you are one of the handful of people who love React, hate JSX, love Angula's directives, but hate Angular...then you will find this article very agreeable. Everyone else will react with a mixture of laughter and confusion.

Sadly, the actual writing and argumentation is poor; if you don't already agree with the author's rather unique point of view, this article certainly won't convince you. It's basically just a puff piece so he can link to his directives-in-React library; eg, important debates about two-way versus one- way binding are dismissed with a quick "React has a mixin for that", which rather misses the point. (Of course, to really discuss this, you'd need to mention Flux, which is studiously ignores, probably because it would distract from his obsession with templates.)

In short: I don't think the author understands React, and I doubt they understand Angular either.

<comment><USER3> > The author thinks that React is amazing at everything, but detests JSX. > Conversely, he hates Angular but loves Angular's directives.

The hilarious part about this statement is that React _is_ the equivalent of the Directive component in Angular...so if you like Angular Directives, there's basically no reason to use React. I'm seriously wondering why this post got so many upvotes.

<comment><USER4> I'm stuck on an older version of angular, but have directives become more composable in the last couple of versions? I had real problems composing them as element directives, which is the only way i'd be able to swallow the equivalence argument.

<comment><USER5> Yes they have, everything is gearing towards component-based architecture in the more recent versions of Angular, and 2.0 is going to be all about components. This is a good read - [http://teropa.info/blog/2014/10/24/how-ive- improved-my-angul...](http://teropa.info/blog/2014/10/24/how-ive-improved-my- angular-apps-by-banning-ng-controller.html)

<comment><USER6> Sorry can you elaborate? How have they become _more_ composable? I don't recall a point at least post 1.X where they were more or less useful for composition than they are now.

<comment><USER5> Sure, there are a lot of subtle things which have been improved in later Angular versions.

First of all, you don't need $scope anymore in controllers, you can still use it for functions like $watch, but you don't need to inject it in just to add properties to your controller, you can just use `this.foo = 'bar';`

You also have the controllerAs syntax which I don't think is present in earlier Angular versions, which provides a shorthand for your controller, and bindToController for directives, which allows you to bind attribute values directly to the directives controller without extra syntax.

If I remember other things I will update this comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here we go again. This article is so obviously biased it's laughable. Right from the "Everybody knows about the bumpy road to mastering Angular" to the cherry picking about templates: "Yeah angular wins, but with this third party component React ties again!".

Here are some other golden nuggets:

"React makes it simple to control the performance. If you implement shouldComponentUpdate, you can choose which comparison you prefer - model or presentation." (Oh, "performance" have never been simpler.)

"React gives you the freedom to choose, without the performance penalty. The outcome really depends on whether you're a good coder or a bad coder." (So Angular is slow regardless of you are a "good" or "bad" coder, but React performance depends on you "goodness" \- check)

"When something doesn't work in Angular directives, one option is to re-write the code in a different way because there's so much magic going on." (Or you could - like try to find out why something in your directive doesn't work?)

<comment><USER8> I guess I'm not clear on why the statement _Everybody knows about the bumpy road to mastering Angular_ shows a bias. I've never met a dev who found Angular easy to pick up. In fact, the rest of the original sentence describes exactly how learning Angular goes for everyone I've spoken about it with: _it 's quick to get started, then it improves and deteriorates as you go along_. Emphasis on the "deteriorates".

EDIT: Moreover, your quotation about performance is from the section on "model complexity", where the original authors were far too generous to Angular. The model of an Angular app is tightly coupled to the Angular system, whereas a React app model is just a POJO.

<comment> saiko-chriskun Angular has been one of the easiest to pick up javascript frameworks I've worked with.

<comment><USER8> Easy to start, sure, but try building a complete non-trivial application from scratch.

<comment><USER9> What would you conclude to be the single most important issue/hurdle/constraint about Angular when moving from simple app to a non- trivial application? (Genuine question)

<comment><USER8> Inertia. The best practice for many reasons is to structure your app as lots of little components, and doing that in Angular is too hard, mostly because every component is at least three files, likely spread out in different places in the folder structure. The overhead of refactoring a component into smaller pieces is huge, since you have to independently split the template, the scope, and the dependencies.

All of the things that seem useful about Angular become a burden at scale. ng- repeat is my favorite example: try repeating more than a few hundred non- trivial components and you'll quickly choke the browser. You end up having to spend most of the application development time figuring out how to do things in a way that doesn't make Angular too upset.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you think you need something like this, I highly recommend that you take a few steps back and rethink how you are doing things.

One of the nicest things about designing a React app is that React makes it so easy to divide your app up into tiny little components that compose and reuse well, and are really easy to understand. Where an angular app might have 5 different controllers and accompanying templates, a similar React app might have 50 different components.

One of the reasons that it's so easy to split off a new React component is because JSX is inline. Putting that into a separate file increases the impedance and maintenance burden substantially.

In other words your

      var createItem = function(itemText) {
        return
{itemText}
;
      };
      return
{this.props.items.map(createItem)}
;

Is much more likely to be:

      return <MyList items={items} />;

who wins now?

<comment><USER8> When writing React code I'm always accidentally fighting to make things more complicated than the system _wants_ , naively opting for the former version, and only after some refactoring settle on the latter, simpler (but more numerous) representation.

When writing Angular code I'm always fighting to make things simpler than the system _wants_ , trying to break my code up into more distinct components, and only after refactoring or hitting my head against the wall settle on the more complicated (but fewer in number) representation.

That is, I think, why the comparison between the two is valuable: not because they are libraries that fill the same niche, but because they encourage distinct development styles.

<comment><USER11> I think the major achievement of React is the API design: minimal, easy to grasp, composable and make it hard to do stupid things (overly complicated code).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I hate calling this stuff out, but this is stupid. React and Angular are two totally different things. React isn't even a framework. It's like all that awful "nodejs vs. Rails" stuff from 1-2 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER8> Though I understand the complaints about this not being the most apples-to- apples comparison, I do think there is value in this article. For instance,

 _The best feature we found with React is that never, even once, did we have to read its code._

Developing Angular applications is a lesson in learning how Angular works, which means you're not learning how the software should work. You need to know far too much about the internals of Angular to successfully build applications with it, which means it's failed as a framework.

<comment><USER13> The simple presence of "link" and "compile" thingies in 90% of the directives is a testament that Angular does spill its guts and is not really simple and intuitive. It annoys me to no end because in the end 95% of developers will end up copy-pasta'ing stuff from the (horrible) docs or StackOverflow without really getting it. And the thing is, they're right, they should never have to care about post-link and compile and whatnot.

I mean don't get me wrong Angular is a great framework that opened a lot of possibilities for a lot of people and I'm glad it exists but it's a strange mix of "dead simple" and "oh my god kill me now" levels of sophistication.

<comment><USER14> ugh, I down voted you but meant to up vote. will try to see how it can be fixed, sorry, fingers too big.

<comment><USER8> To quote every HN comment thread ever, "I wish there was a way to add some space between those buttons."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Ignoring the bias of this article, this comparison makes no sense. AngularJS is a giant framework with all sorts of tools and stuff. ReactJS is a view/two way binding library.

If you are going to compare something, why not do it correctly, and compare it against like a Flux or something.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is such a step back, it's a completely wrong approach trying to mimick it in React:

{{item}}

The equivalent in ES6 (which is React's preferred way to do things now):

      return

        {this.props.items.map(item =>
{item}
)}

;

It's just code! This gets better as you use a better language than JavaScript[0]:

        {
{item}
 for item in @props.items}

Shorter, way more explicit, no new attributes to learn. Enjoy.

[0] [https://github.com/jsdf/coffee-react](https://github.com/jsdf/coffee- react)

</comment><comment><USER17> Fun read, though it seems that either React is almost always the better choice over Angular 1.*, or this author just prefers React over Angular.

I'm thinking the latter is the more likely of the two, but consider my interest piqued. I am a full time Angular developer, but for some time now I have felt obligated to try out React.

Side question: does anyone have any real experience with integrating Firebase with React a la ReactFire? I am currently working on an early-stage app using AngularFire, but it's still early enough to change if given a compelling reason to do so.

<comment><USER15> I'm going to be a little blunt and say this.

You're a full time Angular developer, you obviously know more about Angular then you do React. So why would you switch to using React? At the end of the day both can do the job just as well.

<comment><USER18> You need to keep yourself marketable. There are plenty of interviewers who expect most good JS devs to have React knowledge. It's the hot framework right now.

<comment><USER10> Angular 2.0 takes a lot of the good stuff from React so I think it's much more pragmatic for the average Angular dev to wait for that and learn that first. If Angular 2.0 fizzles, then learn React.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've always thought that flow-control in XML / templates is very messy. That's one of the things that I really like about JSX. It's a very simple, easy to understand transformation to function calls to make HTML generating code look more like HTML, but it's just JS. You don't need to invent flow control attributes on HTML that are really JS, because you are just using JS.

This completely removes that. I'm glad it works for you though and happy hacking!

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't see the point of templates in react, it is just another DSL to remember and to easily forget, javascript is better, allow you to build all the most complex things that templates can't. Also template have a price, another element in the hierarchy, it means allocation, vdom diffing, when an if or a forEach in javascript is simpler and less heavy. Not having template is a win.

</comment><comment><USER21> I see the points why React may be a good choice. Having only worked with Angular so far I really like it's dependency injection and the possibility to make use of services and directives.

However from what I understand React does not implement these features so what additional libraries could be used to keep these mechanisms?

Edit: I'm working in Research so my projects typically have a limited scope and user base.

<comment><USER22> Directives are replaced by React components. I would argue, IMO, that directives are actually a half-assed implementation of components.

In terms of services, I would recommend using Flux to perform actions / store your state. This is what a lot of developers are leaning towards these days. There was a great talk at React Conf about Reflux, I've never used it, but the presentation has convinced me to try it out on my next project: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsSnOQynTHs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsSnOQynTHs)

When you build with React, imagine building an application in Angular using only Directives. It isn't that simple, but that is sort of the idea with React components.

I started with Angular (and still work day to day with it at work) but if someone asked me how I would architect an application tomorrow, I would go with Flux + React + ES6, no questions asked. Also, Angular2 is heavily influenced by React, so learning React now will allow you to have a better understanding of Angular2.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to point out that Dan Abramov's talk is about Redux, his implementation of Flux (not Reflux)

[https://github.com/gaearon/redux](https://github.com/gaearon/redux)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> One benefit of React that I haven't seen discussed: Learning it made me feel like I was improving as a programmer. The best way to improve React applications is to learn more about the concepts behind function reactive programming, which is a skill that transfers far beyond the world of frontend development.

</comment><comment><USER24> Did anyone make it to the end?

The punchline is critical - the article is really about this: [http://wix.github.io/react-templates/](http://wix.github.io/react-templates/)

which I must admit is intriguing

<comment><USER25> Nope, I did not make it to the end haha. Titling your blog post "Angular vs. React" is a sure way to get clicks, but also a sure way to make the large bulk of the discussion around it be about the rivalry and not about the actual content of the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's an interesting comparison but not something I would put much weight into when it comes to making a decision for my next project. Both React and AngularJS can be introduced progressively so as a 20% time project introducing either of them into existing projects wouldn't be too bad and you can make your own informed opinion then.

</comment><comment><USER27> to @asanagi who's shadowbanned: [this comment of yours]([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9428765](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9428765)) was flagged, I suppose by users, and you've been out ever since.

You may want to appeal to firstname.lastname@example.com, your comment wasn't egregious IMO, but the snark made it look trollish.

Looking at your comment history, I see other comments that would probably have gotten you (shadow)banned as well.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9850480](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9850480)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9766989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9766989)

You may want to tone down the aggressiveness in some of your posts.

Edit: addressing your concern about gender, since I feel to some extent sympathetic to what you feel, but not to your reactions.

People who systematically graft a men (agressors) vs women (victims) on topics like domestic violence or prostitution do grind my gears, since it's only part of the narrative and they tend to be blind to the rest of it.

That being said we've been through a heavily misogynistic period (see the women's right movement in the 20th century or this story about raganwald's mother: [http://braythwayt.com/posterous/2012/03/29/a-womans- story.ht...](http://braythwayt.com/posterous/2012/03/29/a-womans-story.html)), and, due to networks effects, it requires sustained action to correct (see [http://ncase.me/polygons/](http://ncase.me/polygons/)), removing the old biases is not enough.

Still, invoking imaginary hard core feminists in that thread about positive discrimination towards women in academia was a bad idea. Without more context, I would have flagged it if I had seen it back then.

</comment><comment><USER28> Oh god, I didn't think it would be possible to dislike react, but you went and threw a hideous renovating language on top of it. This makes it seem like you don't understand how components work. Why even use react in the first place then?

</comment><comment><USER29> Yet another Angular VS React comparison that misses the blatantly obvious - the two are not the same. React is a UI component, Angular is a complete framework. Please stop.

</comment><comment><USER30> There is no best. There is just a best for you/your style.

</comment><comment><USER31> Angular vs Ember perhaps would be more appropriate.

<comment><USER32> Ember choices didn't make sense to me until I learn Rails.

I love Rails,I just learned it recently[1] but Javascript is no Ruby. Ember is SPA oriented.

Angular is much more lightweight. It has good integration with legacy jquery plugins and can be used as a widget in a page as well as in a single page application. Angular 1 doesn't rely on a compiler or an complex asset pipeline which makes it way more simple than Ember,React and co.

[1]: After hearing for years that Rails was bad, which it isn't at all, on the contrary, I would definitely write a large web app like a SHOP or a complex CRM with it. On the other hand on the client side, I prefer widgets to SPA since SEO is a core requirement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> NOTE: This article seems to be a couple of MONTHS old. Look at the age in the comments section.

</comment><comment><USER34> Real Question: Why would you use these instead of something like Knockout.js?

<comment><USER35> Because it's from Microsoft and they are EVIL!

Seriously though, I've worked on projects with Angular and Backbone and have messed around with React, but every project both big and small that I have started has ended up using KnockoutJS.

It is easy to learn, performs amazingly well even with tens of thousands of records, has extremely powerful custom bindings to extend its functionality and even has excellent templating to boot!

Of course in the end people (including myself) just go with what they know and/or want to learn - so which JS framework is "the best" is just a matter of opinion. Having said that, I'd love to hear from someone that has years of Knockout experience explain why they think it is inferior to any other library OR framework.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wish there were something here about testing. Last I looked, Angular has a better testing story than React. This is one thing I like about Angular a lot, the importance the authors put towards making testable JS code.

<comment><USER37> James Shore (of Let's Code: Test-Driven JavaScript) has Testability as part of the criteria for his An Unconventional Review of... series of posts.

An Unconventional Review of Angular JS: [http://www.letscodejavascript.com/v3/blog/2015/01/angular_re...](http://www.letscodejavascript.com/v3/blog/2015/01/angular_review)

An Unconventional Review of React: [http://www.letscodejavascript.com/v3/blog/2014/09/react_revi...](http://www.letscodejavascript.com/v3/blog/2014/09/react_review)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is a very __bad __article. I 'm not sure I really have more to say about it. Shocked to see this at the top of HN.

<comment><USER32> What do you expect, HN is a bit of a "fashion magazine" for coder. "Angular? it's so 2013" /s</comment></comment>


Computer Science Thesis Proposal - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,<p>I'm computer science student, looking for a research topic that I might pursue as a thesis, but have not come up yet with a original idea. I just want to ask you fellows if you have something in mind that you might share to be more. To be more specific any topic that involves datamining in agriculture or image processing. I would really appreciate your help. Thanks <comment><USER2> I have to imagine the folks over at FarmLogs (YC W12) would have some thoughts on datamining in agriculture: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5189241>

Might be worth reaching out to them.

<comment><AUTHOR> hey thanks, will try your suggestion

<comment><USER2> Good luck :)</comment></comment></comment>


A HomePod Intervention - <AUTHOR> https://512pixels.net/2018/03/a-homepod-intervention/ <comment><AUTHOR> Summary: Apple has made a mistake by prioritizing "Sound Quality" over "Smartness". The HomePod needs to smarten up quickly for it to gain a following outside the Apple faithful/audiophile market.

<comment><USER2> They prioritized sound quality, yes, and that likely means they won't sell to those valuing smartness over audio quality, but whether that's a mistake, IMO, is still an open question.

There may be plenty of money in the "somewhat smart" market, or this may be a better strategy than a frontal attack on Amazon and Google.</comment></comment>


Real-time riot analysis/oped via #sfscanner on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/#search?q=sfscanner <comment><AUTHOR> I dunno bout you, but this is the first time I've listened to a police scanner[1] and followed commentary in real-time via twitter. Puts the "real" in real-time. Obviously, SF is one of the most connected places on earth inhabited by some of the most technologically sophisticated people around. That said, this is kind of a taste of how people all over the world will be able to "dial in" to major events as wherever they break. Old world media will kinda be relocated to analysis, recap, retrospective and "professional" oped.

[1]<http://somafm.com/sfscanner.pls></comment>


Tips for Creating a Cohesive Company Culture Remotely - <AUTHOR> http://blog.scrapinghub.com/2015/11/16/tips-for-creating-a-cohesive-company-culture-remotely/ <comment><USER2> Hi HN! We'd like to point out that we're hiring:

[http://scrapinghub.com/jobs/](http://scrapinghub.com/jobs/)</comment>


New "Suicide" Molecule Halts Rheumatoid Arthritis - <AUTHOR> http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2010/01/arthritis.html <comment><USER2> Interesting. I wonder how applicable this would be to other autoimmune problems, like Crohn's disease, since they share other treatments (e.g., Remicade).

</comment><comment><USER3> _Perlman said the next step is to develop nanotechnology for a more precise method of delivering the drug._

1\. Invent fusion

2\. Profit!!!1!!</comment>


BI for the under 40 crowd - <AUTHOR> http://www.looker.com/news/bi-under-40-crowd-why-are-so-many-young-data-analysts-hand-coding-sql

<comment><USER2> It's hard to find a BI solution that has kept up with all the pure analytics platforms. I'm really interested in what RStudio is doing with Shiny.

</comment><comment><USER3> What's BI?</comment>


Why Your Spouse Should be Your First Client - <AUTHOR> http://challengeacceptedhq.com/why-your-spouse-should-be-your-first-client/

<comment><AUTHOR> In another thread, someone mentioned selling and getting from "hello to a signed contract" is one of the hardest parts of freelancing.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7224666](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7224666)

I tried to address that concern with my latest blog post. Hope it helps!</comment>


Csscaffold - rapid css development framework - <AUTHOR> http://wiki.github.com/anthonyshort/csscaffold

<comment><USER2> Pretty cool to make it transparent. Considering a lot of these have the model of a compiled language, this makes it much easier for a designer to work with. The only real problem I have is that it was made pretty heavyweight with the framework they included.

One really cool feature would be automatic CSS sprite generation. Add a "mixin" background-sprite, read in the image, suck up all the others as sprites and generate the final CSS and image file.

<comment><USER3> Any CSS preprocessor is basically transparent in its native language (in this case, PHP). The only time systems like Sass need a compile step is when they're being used with languages other than those they're written in, or with static CSS. Scaffold isn't transparent in these cases, since it simply doesn't support them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's the same as LESS for Ruby: <http://lesscss.org/></comment>


The Story of Alice and Kev, a Sims3 tale of hardship - <AUTHOR> http://aliceandkev.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/alice-and-kev/

<comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=662261></comment>


HP Enterprise Nears Deal to Buy Cray - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-17/hp-enterprise-said-to-near-deal-to-buy-supercomputer-maker-cray-jvrfiu79 <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19939601](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19939601), which is currently on the front page.</comment>